Marx e Foucault: ideologia como dispositivo biopolítico

Abstract

This dissertation, based on Marx’s and Foucault’s categories of thought, seeks to understand how the concept of ideology in The German Ideology by Marx and Engels acts as a biopolitical device. Initially, possible similarities between Marx’s and Foucault’s thought are sought, the latter being presented as a reader of the former. Secondly, some expressions that the concept of ideology has incorporated, mainly those related to Marx’s thought, are (re)analyzed. In this sense, ideology is presented as a multi-headed subjectivity, inasmuch as its concept is far from being univocal, and is probably one of the most controversial notions in the philosophy and social sciences scope. Third, the meaning of biopolitics is discussed. Foucault’s literary output that defines the biopolitics notion is concentrated between 1974 and 1979, though this period suffices for the scholar to differentiate five different formulations corresponding to distinct mechanisms of power: the medical power, race, sexuality, safety and neoliberal governmentality devices. There has been a remarkable chronological expansion of the biopolitics notion, which has been applied almost locally to increasingly extensive areas. Finally, ideology as a biopolitical device, which intermediates people’s lives and has the power to shape reality according to its model, is investigated. In this setting, the population is seen as the object of economic investment and control which standardizes both body and behavior and encourages self-control of one’s own life by the very individual. Upon understanding ideology as a biopolitical device that can question contemporary education, we come across school as an institution which is committed to preparing competences which will guide prospective subject-clients to act in a world where market and competition prevail.